Guild Wars 2

Today, I had the same issue. I was attacking a foe, and out of nowhere the game selected a target behind me (that wasn’t even onscreen). The original target didn’t turn invisible or anything.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Can you provide specific examples of non-soloable events? At scale 1, they’re all soloable, or should be. Are other players in the area scaling up the event without helping?

The Straits of Devastation event chains all claim to be soloable, but in practice, none of the are.

…aren’t solo events at all. The mechanics specifically prohibit completing them without a group. For example, the event at Vrassburn landing requires you to ‘control’ the beach. However, even at maximum Risen clearing capacity, you will be unable to capture this point, event with all the npcs at your side. At the same time, the submarines take steady damage until they’re destroyed.

The events for the the other parts are the same. They claim to be soloable (because they don’t have the [Group] indication, but on many occasions the lone player will be unable to deal enough damage to the objective and keep whatever we’re supposed to protect (submarines, pack dolyak, etc.) alive at the same time.

My favorite event was the one where the galleon has to be protected against sharks. When they notice you, the sharks all charge you at the same time, dealing massive damage while stunning you for 10 seconds. And that too, is listed as a solo event…yeah right.

Please make it so the stats of the companion skills* scale with those of the caster. There have been issues with similar cases in World of Kittencraft (most notably the hunter) where at some point, pet based builds weren’t viable anymore because they didn’t improve along with the player character’s gear and stats. A similar thing is already happening in fractals where the companions become useless at higher levels because they lack infusion.

This is not a request to make them more powerful, it’s only to get them to ‘fit’ the player. Would be nice if they became slightly tougher if the player specs as a tank, and more damaging if the player specs for damage. And of course, that would mean that as the player deals less damage, so should the elementals.

It’s not a big issue yet, but to avoid it becoming one in the future, it may help to look at it now.

*= elementalist’s elementals, engineering turrets, thief’s calls, mesmer clones, mistfire wolf, asura golem skills, etc.

There’s 1 skill missing on your list: Glyph of Elemental Power. When cast in Water or Earth, it basically gives your spells a chance to snare your foe. It’s got a fairly decent uptime (especially if you pick cripple), and by constantly snaring your opponents, you make them more susceptible to getting hit again (rinse, repeat). As an added bonus, it’ll help you kite.

Also, it can make your Meteor Shower snare those hit by hit…that’s pretty neat.

Sabull.5670:

Quite sure Thibash meant that boons and your stats do not change the stat tradeoffs on the gear.

That’s exactly what I meant. Wheter or not the added damage from xx% critical chance outclasses whatever stat you’re giving up is a completely different matter. But fine, I’ll bite:

Let’s accept for the sake of argument, that 1 stack of might (35 power) adds roughly 2% damage.

If you have 50% critical chance, your added dps will be half that of your critical damage. Ergo, 10% critical damage will add 5% dps. This means that 4% critical chance would correspond to 35 power, or better phrased: you get 9 power’s worth of damage for each 1% critical chance.

This translates to 4.5 power at 25% critical chance, and 18 power at 100% chance. So yes, you are correct in stating that wheter taking the stat is ‘worth it’ depends on your actual critical chance.

However…

…that’s not the scope of the article. The purpose of the article is to identify where to start adding critical damage first, and where to add it last. Because regardless of how effective critical damage is, it will cost you less stat points if you put it on a gem than it will if you put it on a 2-handed weapon.

The purpose of the article is not to tell you wheter it’s worth using certain items. It’s telling you what it will cost you if you do pick them. Your argument, while certainly interesting, is more about wheter it’s worth picking critical damage or not. And I agree with you that it depends on the circumstances wheter it’s worth it. But that’s not what the article is about, and thus the boon discussion can be omitted.

I’ve tested this a bit more, and the aforementioned mouse button selection is not the issue. I’ve had the target deselect even when I didn’t even use a skill.

Molch.2078:

Leo G.4501:

Whereas I can stack 10-12 stacks of might on melees with dagger, I can easily keep 25 stacks on them with scepter.

2 Blastfinisher from Fire, one from Earth and one Arcane Utility. And one Combofield Fire. Please, how do you stack 25 times Might?

The finishers you mention create 4*3=12 stacks might. With boon duration runes, they can be applied twice (=24). Rune of battle can create another 9. Elemental Attunement adds +3.

Getting 25 stacks is doable. Maybe not practical, but still doable.

Arheundel.6451:

Our elites are what really kitten me off about this profession, outside the fire elementl which bring in some decent dmg when you need the most, the rest of the elites can easily be trashed away.

We’ve got nothing that can change the course of the battle in our favour…absolutely nothing

Then you’re not using the elementals properly. In dungeons, the Earth Elemental can tank most bosses and groups of adds as well as a player, giving you some much needed breathing room. The ice elemental’s fields can do a lot to tip the battle in your favor, and the air elemental is basically a ranged stun turret…what’s not to like about that?

Strang.8170:

maddoctor.2738:

When ALL Elementalists would rather use another Utility in their elite slot, it’s a clear indication that something is wrong with the elite skills…

There, fixed it for you.

The main issue is that cantrips are so insanely powerful, not to mention that they have the best trait options as well. If stuff is to be rebalanced, than that’s the first thing that should be changed.

Waraxx.4286:

as for the reddit post, its a great post, but misses important factors like might and fury.

It doesn’t. It only shows you how much points of a different stat you give up for each point of critical chance per armor/trinket piece. Boons have nothing to do with it.

Yes, they do know. Yes, they’ve stated they will take it into account, and not just nerf the numbers.

I see…any way to turn that off, so it only uses the left button to select something?

Frequently during fights, even when I do nothing at all, my target randomly gets deselected.

Now, before you say anything:
-Auto-targetting is off.
-Any active target call remains active (so it’s not a matter of the target disappearing).
-I didn’t misclick my skill bar, thus selecting something else or deselecting my current target accidently.
-Promote skill target is on (no idea what it does).
-It happens randomly everywhere, regardless of wheter I’m in a group or not.

Interesting use of terrain. However, it also highlights the elementalist’s current problems: the utility skills you use outclass all the other utility skills by a large margin, and staves will never do as well as dagger/dagger. :-)

Then I can recommend Glyph of Elementals in Earth Magic, with the Quick Glyphs trait. It can be active a lot more often, and it’s one of the best tanks of all possible companions.

To be honest, I don’t really want a portal. Let mesmers have their fun. I rolled an ele for a reason, and that’s not so I can mimic mesmers.

Fiery Greatsword in a burst build works reasonably well. Also, you can comine the auto attack with Elemental Surge in water to stack a big amount of chill too.

A week or 2 ago, one of the developers stated in another thread that any event that doesn’t specifically state [Group Event] would be doable by a single player.

However, this is currently not the case for the Defeat the Drake Broodmother event in the Lost Shores. The drake itself isn’t that tough, but the normal Reef Drakes that spawn around it make it impossible to defeat. They use a combination of pulling, stunning and a damage field that eats through your health in mere seconds even in tank gear, while you cannot do anything about it.

Now, before the usual responses of ‘use stability/stunbreaker’ or ‘dodge them’ come up, I can assure you I make full use of those. However, the ping-pong effect that happens when multiple drakes appear really amp up the difficulty of this event to Group Event status.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just wanted to let you guys know that we’re reading this thread.

Thank you for taking the time to adress this. I know that I’ve been overreacting with this. The thing is that I’ve really been struggling finding a good place in PvP with my staff elementalist, and I was worried that it would get even tougher.

I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. My apologies.

Edeor.9720:

Sure Anet have to nerf thieves and hb warrior, but they have to nerf also many bunker build because as it’is ridiculous you can be killed in less than a second, so it’s ridiculous you cannot kill a class that, thanks to its resistance and its escape ability, is almost immortal

The reason most eles play bunker builds is because if we don’t, we can’t winning anything. I’m all for a balanced build, but the main difference between a balanced ele and a bunker ele, is that balanced eles can also by killed by other bunkers, whereas bunkers can only be killed by burst.

And if we go burst, we can do extremely well…until we boot up the game. The damage just isn’t sufficient.

cesmode.4257:

My gosh, people…everytime theres some big announcement everyone freaks out. Yes, I freaked out about ascended gear with everyone else but that shook up the core of the game.

That’s what it will do to staff elementalists as well. Because that’s all they can do: aoe damage. And they’re not very good at that already.

The thing is, Gaudrath, that while you do make a good point, it’s also pretty silly to think the players will never come with useful suggestions ever. Also, while Anet may have statistics, we have gameplay experience. For the optimal result, the two should be combined.

Remember the old saying ‘better safe than sorry’? Well, that’s what I’d like to see. If the change turns out to be ok, then I’ll be happy…but unless Anet comes out and gives details, there’s no way we can be sure it’s a good fix…and I’d prefer to prevent the bad fixes.

CobaltSixty.1542:

Nobody complains about things that make them win.

Why the kitten would you?

But they do complain about stuff that causes them to lose…and there have been almost 0 complaints of people losing due to AoE…

Zantetsuken.9051:

Want to suggest a counter to that, saying as you think you know something about military tactics?

Easy, throw down your own AoEs on the portal where they’re all supposed to appear.

As for the rendeing, you don’t balance the game based on server performance issues. You fix the server.

1. No.
2. Yes, they’re too weak on the elementalist.
3. No.
4. If it actually balances stuff, then yes.
5. If the damage reduction has to be applied, at least do it in an intelligent way, and look at the individual weapons. Staff eles have no option to swap to non-AoE skills, nor can they switch weapons in combat. So nerfing their damage (which is already much less than the more single-target minded D/D build) makes no sense at all.

At the moment, the D/D build (which is more single target orientated) deals about twice the damage of a staff build (which is mostly AoE).

This is what the intended effect of the nerf will be. Hence, if the nerf is applied, it’ll be as if it were applied twice on the staff elementalist.

And that’s not even considering the fact that the AoEs have a balancing mechanism already. They take longer to cast, and (for the ele), way longer to land. So if the damage is nerfed any further, those other balancing mechanisms have to go. Single target attacks are instant, especially after they’ve been cast. You don’t see heartseeker taking 2 seconds before it deals damage after it’s been cast.

I.e. the staff AoE’s need to become instant cast, instant hits.

The main gripe that many people have with Magic Find is that people that use it contribute less to the group (they could get extra damage or survivability instead of magic find) but get more. Now, you could argue that if you get defeated more often, that’s your problem, not mine. But each time you’re on the ground doing nothing, that also takes more time for me to complete the dungeon.

The idea behind GW2 was that players would not be hindered by the choices of other players. With Magic Find, this is obviously not the case, even if it’s more in theory than in practice.

The reason why AoE shouldn’t be nerfed in damage is because it already has other things that balances it.

Taking the staff elementalist as an example, there’s almost no AoE attack that can be cast as fast as single target effects, and many have a seizable delay before they hit as well. Nerfing their damage would make them unplayble unless the other aspects were removed. Which in turn would make them hit more often, thus increasing their damage again.

And besides, the staff elementalist’s damage is already about half that of the dagger elementalist…if anything, it’s a good example of what things could be like after a nerf like this…applying the nerf to it would basically mean nerfing it twice.

There are certain professions, like for example the staff wielding elementalist, that have virtually no attacks that aren’t AoE. Does anyone know wheter their skills will be altered to make the upcoming nerf less harsh? Or will the damage just be nerfed, and left at that?

My guess is that boon duration runes will no longer stack. Which makes sense mind you, but I will miss them. :-)

I assume Anet is aware of the fact that this makes it impossible to do Crucible of Eternity on my server? Because even if I do find a group, chances are high I’m the only one who can stay alive through the Project Alpha boss phases…

On a side note, does this mean Glyph of Renewwal will once again be able to res defeated players?

MarzAttakz.9608:

Rieselle.5079:

Actually, I think all the good, gameplay changing traits should be at 10 points. (like evasive Arcana) the higher point traits should be those “stacking” types, like additional percent damage.

So rather than the paradigm of “good traits are the most expensive”, instead the trait system should allow for maximum flexibility at 10 points , and the 30 point traits are for those who want to squeeze every last bit of damage/healing/crit/defense/etc.

That’s a very interesting point and a very good suggestion!

If by gameplay changing traits you mean traits like Pyromancer’s Puissance or Written in Stone, then I’d disagree. The main reason they’re so high up in traitlines is to make various traitlines change the playstyle a bit. If you reverse that by putting them in low part ranges, then you get to a point where picking traits doesn’t matter save for a few extra damage, defense or healing, and all playstyles will feel the same.

The staff has a few decent condition damage skills, but the main reason why I avoid it is because most of them are tough to actually hit the opponent with.

Having said, have you ever considered a scepter build? The earth and fire auto attacks can add a good amount of DoTs while also being a lot easier to hit with.

It’s been a while back, somewhere deep in the Elementalist forum. This isn’t the first time this suggestion has come up.

stof.9341:

I like the 100% change more than your proposal of 50% chance which makes blind completely unreliable.

What if it stacked? Get 5 stacks of blind = your next 5 attacks will miss.

Then Elementalists could be able to abuse it to make the next 15 attacks by a group of enemies miss.

Arcane Power + Elemental Surge + Chain Lightning staff auto attack.

Also, that’s not all blind does, it literally makes players unable to see stuff while the blind is active. Of course, that doesn’t work on mobs. But it’s pretty neat in PvP.

Manakel Angel.1047:

In fact, i have a better idea (maybe) about blind. I experience in an other game (i don’t remember which one) e really roleplay blind with my screen becoming black. I saw the skills, the map and quest indicators but everything else was black. I think it would be really good to implement this in the game. And by the way, if the developpers implement surdity, the same can be done with the sound shut down.

As stataed above, when you get blind, enemies disappear.

This is probably an oversight, but most similar skills have been made leap finishers by now…so please do the same for this Fiery Greatsword skill. It’s only proper, since it’s an Elementalist elite skill.

KrakenAZ.9367:

Anet – I’ll buy and spend gems for you to NOT do this.

Brilliant reply…just…brilliant. :-)

Daendur.2357:

giving more hp to eles will result in an OP class beconming even more OP.
That’s not a great idea in my opinion.

That’s why it should be part of a bigger plan, instead of the only thing that changes.

Leo G.4501:

ThiBash.5634:

They should rework the skill in its entirety. At the moment, it’s just newbie bait…once they finally learn how it works, they ditch it like the rest of us.

Well, I’m not a newbie :P

Hehe, I’m sorry if implied that you were. What I meant was, when you’re yet unfamiliar with how ressing works in the game, you look at this skill and think: “Wow, this is awesome!”. Then you find out that it only works on downed players, that the casting time is almost as high as just helping the downed player in a regular way, and you’ll realize you won’t have room for it on your skill bar.

The only use I’ve ever found for it is that you can get the fire effect without actually ressing someone. However, if you spend that much time preventing to go down, you could have cast a heal or something as well.

They should rework the skill in its entirety. At the moment, it’s just newbie bait…once they finally learn how it works, they ditch it like the rest of us.

Anet is currently working on a more advanced version of this, that also allows players to swap trait builds and equipment, instead of just weapon swapping for eles.

It’ll take a bit longer, but all professions will benefit instead of just eles and engis.

Would be cool to be able to do that dance ingame…would probably look awesome on a Charr.

The trick I’m using currently is to only use magic find on gear where the amount of stats I am giving up for it is the least. A gem for example, gives 4% magic find instead of 25 stat. In contrast, using magic find on a 2-handed weapon would only give 5% for 179 stat points. By only using the lowest (think it’s gems on normal jewelry, head gloves & boots, and pirate runes) I’m getting a good chunk of magic find and only give up a fraction of the stats I would if I went full.

Best of both worlds scenario…

Did any of you consider that it may be due to technical restraints?

Due to the way bleeding stacks, and given the fact that the damage is updated whenever the condition damage of the owner changes, imagine how things would be without a cap. Tracking all possible bleeds from over a hundred sources may be a bit too much to handle during something as stressful as a world boss.

Having said that, condition builds do seem a bit weak currently, but the damage isn’t mitigated by armor and once the stack’s on there, it keeps ticking unlike power builds that have to keep attacking. Maybe that evens things out in Anet’s eyes?

An Asura gate to the Mists makes sense actually. After 200 years, they’ve mastered not only going to different places, but also to different worlds…seems like a logical next step for gate travel to be honest.

You can make adjustments to the face in the creator…maybe one of the devs went crazy with it, and this is the result?

rhodoc.2381:

Let’s say if you have 5-6 swiftness skills with auro, heal or etc.

After you get 50sec-1min swiftness, some of those skills doesnt add swiftness to your current swiftness. Mostly it happens when you grant swiftness in 2-3sec before you apply a new one.

And I think this is not specific to swiftness, it is same for fury. But i cannot talk about othes since i cannot have that much of them.

The game behaves like that “Hey what you gonna do that so much swiftness on you. I wont give you all you want just some of you want.”

There’s a cap on most boons, somewhere around 2 minutes I’ve read somewhere.

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

The problem is that the primary reason a lot of people bought into GW2 was because they believed they would be able to max out the power of a character, over time, without grinding, and not have to re-max those same characters later every few months. How small the difference between their character and a max character is simply isn’t relevant to the fact that many of us now have no hope of ever maxing out a character.

Oh, I totally agree. If they’d remove it tomorrow I’d be happy today. But what the OP said, was overreacting.

The thing is, in Guild Wars 1, many if not most people would go for a golden lettered item instead of a purple lettered one, simply because it was ‘rarer’. Even though it never showed anywhere but your own inventory screen. So I still don’t get why Anet would increase the stats, when they know their fanbase would have been happy if they changed the color of the letters only…

klesk.1790:

In a gaming world even 0.0001 increase in gear increase makes a huge difference…

That’s 0.01%…at 20,000 health, that’s 2 health. At 2000 damage, that’s 0.2 damage. That doesn’t matter at all.

But let’s assume for a moment that it’s 1% difference. That would be 200 health and 20 damage. Sounds like a big deal, but consider this: how often do you fight someone where you both go down at the same time? Because that is the only time where the 200 extra health would have saved you.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Can you provide specific examples of non-soloable events? At scale 1, they’re all soloable, or should be. Are other players in the area scaling up the event without helping?

Ural’s Delve at the skill point, a Veteran Spider appeared as a Dynamic Event. After about 4 minutes, with all my turrets active, I’d done maybe 5% of its health in damage at best. It destroyed my turrets in 2 or 3 attacks (even the thumper!).

There were no other players anywhere near when the event started, but the spider was still impossibly tough. Also, it’s location icon on the map appeared twice.

Note that I first defeated a regular veteran spider before the event started, out of nowhere. It wasn’t a very nice surprise, especially since I’d just blown up my turrets for the final blow on the normal veteran spider.